Hudson County has agreed to continue participating in a program allowing county correctional officers to identify and arrest undocumented immigrants - and advocates who oppose the program are not happy.

On Friday, Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise announced that the County Department of Corrections will continue participating in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Priority Enforcement Program for Jails.

Previously, the county had a two-year agreement to participate in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, commonly called 287(g). This agreement expired on June 30.

According to a statement by Hudson County, DeGise requested that the new agreement have no set time limit so it could withdraw from the 287(g) portion of the program in case the PEP's "standards changed or if it's impact came to be viewed as a net negative regarding the operation of local law enforcement." ICE agreed to this request.

Groups that opposed the county's participation in this program urged local government not to continue the agreement after the expiration date.

"We are disturbed by the decision," said Chia-Chia Wang, organizing and advocacy director for the immigrant rights program at Newark-based American Friends Service Committee.

She said more than 30 organizations signed a letter addressed to DeGise, the Hudson County freeholders and the director of corrections, urging them not to sign another agreement.

The Rev. Eugene P. Squeo, pastor at St. Patrick and Assumption All Saints in Jersey City, called the decision to renew, "a poor decision on the part of county officials," adding that, "it allows ICE to deputize county employees, and it puts those county employees on the front line of immigration enforcement. I don't think the county has any business being in the immigration enforcement business."

According to statistics provided by Hudson County in a press release, from Oct. 1, 2015 to June 29, 2016, Hudson County Corrections encountered 599 foreign born inmates. Of those, 64 individuals, or 0.78 percent, were flagged by county corrections officers. And of those 64 people, 10 were deported, with the rest either remaining in ICE custody, getting involved with immigration proceedings not detained by ICE, or going into county custody pending criminal charges.

Currently, one ICE-trained county corrections officer per each of the three shifts at the jail is charged with carrying out the 287(g) reviews, according to Hudson County's statement. Four corrections officers are currently trained by ICE.

The decision to renew this program was made after an almost month-long review that included meetings with immigration activists, ICE officials and the freeholders, according to a statement.

The nature of PEP, which governs 287(g) operations in jail, swayed DeGise's decision to continue the program. According to the county's statement, PEP "significantly narrows the category of individual who may be 'flagged' for an ICE 'detainer' by local corrections officers to only those who pose a threat to public safety."

"In the end, I've become convinced that the Homeland Security Department under President Obama has set guidelines for this program are humane and reasonable," said DeGise in a statement. "They allow us to assist in removing to ICE custody the tiny handful of individuals convicted of significant criminal offenses or who otherwise pose a threat to public safety. Our corrections officers are not police officers or sheriff's officers; they do not actively operate outside the confines of our jail. I do not believe their continued involvement in this program will chill any racial or ethnic group's willingness to interact with police in their communities."

According to Squeo, while PEP program is supposed to set priorities so that criminals with extensive records will get deported, "what seems to be true more often than not is that those that get ensnared in the program are either those who have had minor offenses or non-violent crimes," he said.

Wang said the 287(g) program allows Hudson County officers to issue immigration detainers - a document that immigration custom enforcement uses to hold people, primarily immigrations, up to 48 hours.

"People may be stopped for traffic violations, stopped at a crime scene, maybe booked into jail for a variety of reasons - those (immigrants) will be affected by 287(g) as well," she said.

Wang says that in fiscal year 2015, Hudson County used immigration detainers four to 10 times more than any other local law enforcement agency in the state, including other county jails.

Wang said groups have made Open Public Records Act requests for the county's records regarding the ICE program, but the county has not fulfilled any of those requests.

She also alleges the county has a lucrative contract with ICE, which pays the county to house hundreds of federal prisoners in the Hudson County jail in Kearny. The county is budgeted to receive $18 million from ICE for that program this year.

According to census figures, 42 percent of Jersey City residents are foreign born, with that number going as high as near 60 percent for the whole county, Wang said.

The program doesn't take into consideration the number of years an immigrant has been in the United States, or if that individual has US citizens who rely on them, Squeo said.

"Immigration should be left to ICE," Squeo said. "The county should be looking after the public welfare of its citizens."

Squeo added that the county's involvement in ICE sends a mixed message to the immigrant community, contrasting with its "immigrant friendly" image.